Crew-12 Ready to Depart as New Residents Begin Advanced Health Research

Four members of NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 mission, including Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev, NASA astronauts Jack Hathaway and Jessica Meir, and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot, were photographed together inside their SpaceX Dragon spacecraft at SpaceX headquarters in California on January 23, 2026. These four Expedition 75 crew members were in their final day aboard the International Space Station, preparing to undock and return to Earth.

Their departure would leave seven residents on the orbiting laboratory to continue advanced research and maintain the station. NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway were assigned to command and pilot Dragon during undocking at 8:05 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. Adenot and Fedyaev would return with them, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 11:34 a.m. on Thursday.

This return marked the conclusion of NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 mission after 237 days in space. The crew had spent the past couple of weeks packing Dragon with personal items, cargo, and scientific samples. They had also prepared drink bags combined with salt tablets to consume before re-entering Earth's atmosphere as part of fluid loading, a critical measure to help the body adjust to gravity after extended time in space.

The new arrivals at the ISS on October 1, Crew-13 members Jessica Watkins, Luke Delaney, Josh Kutryk, and Anil Menon, had already begun their scientific work. Watkins studied blood samples to investigate risks of space-induced blood clots, while Delaney tracked sleep patterns and logged data for the RelaxPro investigation. Kutryk had his veins scanned by Adenot using Ultrasound 3, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov recorded his breathing rate using an acoustic sensor.

Both NASA flight engineer Anil Menon and station commander Pyotr Dubrov, along with cosmonaut Anna Kikina, had arrived on July 14 and were set to remain in space until spring. Menon wore sensors during a session on a stationary bike to monitor heart and breathing rates, while Dubrov and Kikina set up equipment to test a wearable device for simulating robot manipulation in the Teledroid investigation.

For the latest updates on ISS activities, readers could follow the ISS blog, @space_station on X, and the ISS's Facebook and Instagram accounts. NASA provided weekly updates through its website.